A recuperator may be used to effect heat exchange in a gas turbine engine. A high performance recuperator typically needs a large number of recuperator plates made from thin foil, positioned relative to one another with high accuracy. In particular, a pair of sheets are generally joined together to form each recuperator plate and precise positioning of the two sheets is desired when assembling them into the plate. However, due to the small features of each sheet, such positioning precision may be difficult to achieve.
Conventional assemblies tend to rely on trimming the edges of the sheets to position the latter. This may result in the plates becoming wavy during the press forming of each recuperator plate, thereby reducing the accuracy in the relative positioning of the sheets. As a result, the overall performance of the recuperator is negatively effected.
There is therefore a need for improved gas turbine engine recuperators.